Notes from the road, Summer 2003

I've been playing a lot of piano for the last month or two,
trying to get my fingers in shape to play a two hour improvisation
on the piano here. I checked out the piano last week and noticed
that it was quite a bit older than I had expected, and not in
very good shape. Today, though, I realize that it's more beat
up than I had imagined. Several of the keys don't work, and the
tone is quite mushy. This thing is at least 100 years old.

I ask the organizer, an old friend of my wife's, whether she
knows a piano repair technician nearby. She finds someone who
can come in the next hour. After he works on the broken keys,
the piano is a bit more playable, but still very disappointing.
I feel bad for the Yoga Studio, because I realize that someone
sold them this piano for way too much money, and it's too old
for serious use.

I had hoped that I might be able to arrange a tour someday
with more piano solo concerts, but I am beginning to realize that
good pianos are getting harder and harder to find. I may have
to re-think the piano thing a bit.

The concert goes OK, with a somewhat low turnout due to poor
advertising. I feel a bit disappointed, but happy enough with
my playing that I think afterwards that the solo piano concept
might work, if I can get people interested.

Wednesday June 4 - Palm Springs, CA

Started the tour today, drove all day. Stopped in a Motel 6
near Palm Springs, on Interstate 10. What a weird place. The hotel
is situated at the Eastern edge of a huge wind power farm. I can
immediately see why they put windmills here, but the location
of the Hotel remains a mystery. Nothing around but a Denny's and
a gas station. I ponder driving ten miles south to Palm Springs,
but decide I'll just stay here and hit the road first thing in
the morning.

Constant gale force winds slam against the building all night
long, creating low thrumming sounds like the onset of a small
earthquake. Pressure changes from the passing wind create suction
on the hotel room door, causing it to bang repeatedly outwards
against the doorframe. I find some paper and fold it into thick
wedges, cramming them into the crack between the door and the
frame, trying to stop the insistent thumping.

In the morning, the wind has stopped. It's sunny and calm.
I wonder if weather will become the dominating theme of this tour.
When I'm driving alone for long miles, I do tend to become especially
tuned into the weather. In a car, I feel exposed to the elements,
more vulnerable. I also feel alive to the changes, excited by
the passing storms. Northern California weather changes so slowly,
with few drastic storms to mark the shifting seasons. I love the
thunderstorms I've seen on the plains, serious weather that makes
a person feel small.

Friday June 6 - Scottsdale AZ, Kerr Cultural Center

I didn't really know what to expect from this concert. The
organizer, Slim Golba, has a reggae band that plays in just intonation,
and he wanted to bill the event as a night of pure tuning. My
own experience has been that people don't really care what tuning
I use, as long as they like the music. (I use JI to please myself
mostly.)

To my surprise, the venue turns out to be quite nice, despite
requiring some last minute changes to the PA system. Slim's band
has a loyal core audience, augmented by a bunch of my listeners,
some of whom drove all the way from Tucson. A great night overall,
and I'm especially happy to see Rick Davies, only regretting that
we don't get more time to hang out together.

Saturday June 7 - Albuquerque, NM

I'm not a desert kind of guy, so I'm happy to pass through
the wooded mountains around Flagstaff on my way to Albuquerque.
Looking for signs of recent thunderstorms, I ponder stopping to
hunt for mushrooms under the pine trees. Alas, the ground looks
dry, so I keep my momentum and arrive early in Albuquerque. I'm
staying with Jim Coker, who later shows me some very cool MIDI
software that he has written for Macintosh System X, emulating
the looping performance of analog sequencers.

Michael Stearns and Ron Sunsinger drive down from Santa Fe
to visit, and they drop by Jim's house to join us for dinner.
I haven't seen Michael for several years, and this is the fist
time I've met Ron. Ron actually performed a marriage ceremony
for my friend Rick Davies and his wife over a decade ago, and
Rick made me promise to pass on his greeting.

We spend most of the evening sharing war stories about the
music biz, ruminating about the fluid landscape of record labels
and film deals. Michael has some colorful stories to tell, regarding
sound design work he had been doing in Texas for a Civil War documentary,
emulating the sounds of bullets hitting flesh. Always good dinner
talk.

Sunday June 8 - Albuquerque, NM

Setting up for a radio Sleep Concert on KUNM as part of the
Nonsequiter radio arts festival. Had dinner with Steve Peters,
who arranged the event. While setting up, I'm hanging out with
some very
talented visual artists. They're friends of my host, Jim Coker,
and they do some brilliant large scale work with Photoshop, printed
onto canvas.

Performing at low density until 6 AM, with the usual sleep
concert diet of coffee and Cliff bars to stay awake. The pleasant
company of music loving graphic artists makes the time pass more
quickly. Radio sleep concerts tend to be a bit easier for me than
live ones, because I don't have to be quiet during the long lulls
between musical shifts.

Tuesday June 10 - Driving through Oklahoma

Back on the road after a day of extra sleep in Albuquerque.
Somewhere east of Oklahoma City I'm watching a giant storm cell
bubbling to the south. My position eastbound on I-40 is perfect,
at the edge of the storm avoiding danger, far enough away that
I can observe the shape of the towering cumulonimbus with its
top sheared off into ice crystals high up in the stratosphere;
yet close enough to study the battleship green shelf of mammatus
clouds overhead to my right, a clausterphobic ceiling textured
underneath with curling roiling bruise-colored tubules, not unlike
giant intestines. My sense of distance gets boggled by the size
of this storm, on the horizon of a flat land, possibly centered
100 miles away, yet with tendrils that drop an occasional pocket
of heavy rain and lightning on the highway in front and behind
me. I'm mesmerized by the power and danger that this living entity
represents, enchanted by its awesome beauty.

Watching the Weather Channel in a Motel 6 somewhere in nowheresville
eastern Oklahoma that night, I see radar maps of the storm that
I watched in person, a few tornadoes which thankfully did no damage.
It seems commonplace here in early summer.

Wednesday June 11 - Nashville, TN

A quick visit with my old friend and mastering mentor Bob Olhsson
and his wife Ellen. We watch the new DVD "Standing in the
Shadows of Motown" on which he consulted. Bob was a recording
engineer at Motown during those heady days of the late sixties.
We share a bottle of old Boujolais and discuss the music biz as
usual, Bob sharing his unique perspective as an old-garde insider.
I sleep on their couch.

June 12-15 - Atlanta, GA

I arrive in Atlanta after a beautiful day's drive through wooded
mountains (the Smokey Mountain range, perhaps.) Staying this week
with Renée Nelson and her fiancé Michael Overstreet.
Renée organized the Atlanta concert, and her band Envie
will open. Renée plays harp sometimes with Jarboe (ex Swans.)
We got to know each other through a mixing project I did with
Percy Howard a couple years ago, a song with Jarboe singing and
Renée on harp.

I'm looking forward to seeing Henry Frayne also, who shares
the bill with us. His solo project Lanterna sounds like spacey
surf country. Henry and I met back in 1996 when he interviewed
me on his radio show in Champaigne-Urbana IL, where he still lives.
We saw each other again in 1998 in Chicago, when he played guitar
with a band at the Projekt Festival that year. Henry is tall,
lanky, and shy. He has an honest easygoing earnestness about him.

Food becomes the underlying theme here in Atlanta. It turns
out that Renée and Michael are foodies like me, and they're
happy to show me the best in Southern cooking. We have some great
dinners, and I begin to discard any notion of losing weight on
this tour: lots of really good fried food, including a memorable
appetizer of breaded alligator.

The concert on Saturday goes well, although the Eyedrum Gallery
feels a bit rustic, to say the least. The turnout is pretty good,
mostly thanks to the local audience for Envie. Their set sounded
as if they were struggling with the room acoustics and poor monitoring
on stage. Their sort of chamber pop shows serious musical talent,
with a fragility that can prove difficult to pull off live.

Henry Frayne's set sounded lush and silky. He played in deep
shadow, hunched over his guitar as if he were alone in a dark
closet. I confess that I have a hard time sitting through opening
acts when I'm headlining, even when I like the music. I tend to
get quite restless waiting to start. I don't really remember my
own set, whether it went well or not. I do remember that we were
quite exhausted by the time we tore down and got home. Maybe we
got to sleep by 3 or 4 AM.

Monday June 16 - Atlanta to Asheville, NC

On my way out of town, I join Renée and her father for
lunch at one of his favorite barbeque spots, a large low brick
building with an expansive back room filled with round tables
and dinette chairs. We all order platters of chopped pork with
coleslaw and muffins on the side. The slow-cooked meat comes unadorned,
with choices of mild or spicy BBQ sauce in squirt bottles on every
table. I learn this is the standard practice for Atlanta style
barbeque.

The drive to Asheville passes through some very exciting weather,
driving under pockets of heavy thunderstorms. Not many cars on
the roads, the smart ones staying home perhaps. I'm taking mostly
country highways, the recommended shortcuts since the interstates
don't connect directly. The countryside with low mountains and
rolling forest looks beautiful, but sometimes the rain is so heavy
I mostly stare straight ahead, staying alert for flooding and
nearby lightning.

By the time I get to Asheville, it's sunny again and humid.
I'm staying in a shared house with several musicians, mostly drummers.
The fireflies flash in the trees at night.

Tuesday June 17 - Asheville, NC, Vincent's Ear

I meet John Vorus, who has been immensely helpful trying to
make this concert at Vincent's Ear a success. He printed some
great looking posters, and borrowed a PA system from a friend
to substitute for the club's fried speakers. He even found the
place for me to sleep during my visit. Folks like John and his
friends make it possible for me to go on tour.

I'm not too fond of playing in clubs or bar-like environments.
People usually talk too much, and the cigarette smoke can really
get on my nerves. Vincent's Ear was no exception, although in
general the vibe from the audience was great. The first of the
two opening acts was one of the drummers who rehearsed at the
house where I was staying, and his short set of experimental drum
squeeks and feedback showed sensitivity and creativity.

The guy who came on after him played deafeningly loud low drones
on a laptop, which sent me running out of the room into the lightly
rainy night. I chatted outside with a few fans who had driven
from Tennessee for the show.

During my set I had to stare down a guy at the back of the
club who was talking on his cellphone so loudly that I could hear
every word up on stage, through my headphones. He stopped talking.
However, I couldn't stop the smoking, which seems to be a state-sponsored
passtime in North Carolina. (Driving in the car a month later,
I could still smell the old smoke that had soaked into the foam
of my road cases.)

Wednesday June 18 - Pittsburgh PA

Pittsburgh has to be one of the most difficult towns to drive
in of any that I've seen in this country. I get lost in a maze
of detours back and forth accross the river as I try to find Jeff
Kowal's house, where I'm staying.

I got to know Jeff first as a client, when I mastered his first
album. He works under the name Terra Ambient, and has good ear
for thick rumbly textures. He's trying his hand as a concert promoter
for the first time, in partnership with Jim Brenholtz. Jeff Pearce
and I agreed to squeeze in a Pittsburgh show on our way out to
Harrisburg for the big festival this Sunday.

Friday June 20 - Pittsburgh PA, Rex Theater

They say the Rex Theater is haunted. Noises up in the attic
sound more like the ceiling could collapse. This building does
not inspire confidence. A torential rainstorm starts around 4
PM, and continues for several hours. Luckily we have already unloaded
the gear, and sound check is almost done.

The stage manager casually informs me that the theater roof
leaks occasionally in heavy rains, but that it usually just drips
a bit in the back corner of the stage. Just to be safe he recommends
that I move my rig forward a bit. I shuffle things a few feet,
grudgingly because I hate to move my rig after it's set up.

An hour later, the manager finds me in the front lobby to let
me know that the roof is indeed leaking, but the water looks like
it's missing my gear. I might want to check, just in case. I run
up to the stage to discover that a stream of drips is landing
directly on my mixer, which is just beginning to short out with
fizzing sounds in the headphones, and LEDs blinking randomly on
and off. I yank the power as fast as I can and mumble some swear
words, while thinking how to solve this disaster.

We unplug some cables and drag the synths over to the center
of the stage, out of the rain. I send Jeff down the street to
buy a cheap hairdryer. I pull the Mackie mixer out of the rack,
unplugging a hundred patch cords behind it, unscrew the chassis
and begin to dry all the circuit boards with a towel. Jeff returns
with hairdryer and I blow-dry all the nooks and crannies behind
the front panel.

Amazingly, after reassembling the mixer, it works again. After
another 20 minutes patching cables inside the rack case, I'm up
and running. Opening duo Life in Balance have been waiting patiently
for me to get rebuilt, unable to set up and do soundcheck until
my tools and junk clear the stage. (They had their own mishap
today, with a broken crystal bowl-gong. Perhaps this place is
haunted after all?)

It turns out that this rainstorm has triggered some flash flooding
in outlying areas of Pittsburgh, and quite a few people may have
decided to stay home tonight. The turnout looks to be disappointing.

Jeff Pearce puts on an good show, chatting with the audience
between each of his dense loop-based guitar pieces. He only plays
half as long as expected, though. Backstage, I ask him why he
only played 25 minutes. He explains that the squeeking noises
above the stage were getting so loud that he feared the roof would
cave in. Great. Now it's my turn. Luckily, the roof holds together
for the next few hours and we limp back to Jeff's house after
an exhausting and somewhat stressful night.

Sunday June 22 - Harrisburg PA, Whittaker Science Center

A blissfully uneventful Saturday: drove to Harrisburg and checked
into the hotel. Ate dinner at the hotel, practiced piano a bit
in the hotel bar, went back upstairs and read a book.

The concert today is the original catalyst for going on tour
this summer, a Solstice event with Jeff Pearce, Steve Roach, John
Serrie and me at Harrisburg's shiny new Science Center. I love
these well-oiled gigs, with money to pay proper fees and do some
real promotion. The theater looks great and sounds great, and
setup goes smoothly.

Jeff Pearce cracks everyone up when he finishes his set by
snipping four of his guitar strings with wire cutters, before
playing a closing piece on two strings with ebow and loops. He
tells me later backstage that he cut one string too many in his
enthusiasm, and struggled to keep the ebow placed properly over
the string. People enjoy his homespun theatrics, though.

I start my set with a piano improvisation, then slide over
to the electronics in what I had hoped would be a seamless transition.
I put the headphones on, getting ready to start playing "Animus",
and hear a sizzling crunchy sound coming from some piece of gear
in the rack. Echoes of Pittsburgh! So much for seamless transitions.
I apologize to the audience, quickly mute and unmute all the channels,
and luckily discover the hum in one of the Lexicon reverbs. It's
the short reverb that I use to thicken some percussion sounds,
and I quickly determine I won't need it tonight because the theater
has good acoustics and can provide its own reverb. Luckily, that
appears to be the only glitch during my set.

(Upon reflecting about the fizzing reverb, I remember that
it also got rained on in Pittsburgh, sitting face up at the top
of the rack next to the mixer. Since it was still behaving itself
in Pittsburgh, the water must not have soaked into the unit yet.
The moisture waited for me like a little time bomb, frying the
unit in little increments during subsequent shows.)

After my set, I hang around in the control room to listen to
Steve Roach's set, always seamless and deep. I spend most of the
time during John Serrie's performance out in the front lobby signing
CDs and chatting with audience members. We had planned to do a
group bow for the audience after John ended his set, but John
plays almost an hour longer than expected. We bail on the group
ending and hang around backstage telling stories with John Diliberto.

After a quick partial tear-down we all retreat to the neighboring
hotel restaurant for late night dinner and jovial conversation.
I wish every concert could end this well.

Monday June 23 - en route to Westchester, NY

I drive out to my sister's house, where I'll take a couple
weeks off and visit family. Originally I had planned to perform
in Paris during this interval, but the war and airline caution
would have made it too difficult to travel with electronic gear.
I'm looking forward to some downtime, anyway.

Wednesday June 25 - Troy, NY

The concert in Troy pulled together quickly when I decided
to stay in New York instead of travel to France. After an easy
two hour drive from Westchester, I meet with organizer Jason Murphy
and we head to the theater, a classy black box that seats about
100 people, often a perfect sort of venue for me. It even features
a beautiful Baldwin grand piano. I learn that Troy is sleepy in
the summertime, a college town that rolls up its sidewalks when
the students go home. The concert goes fairly well but the turnout
is low. On the plus side, the Lexicon behaves itself tonight.

June 26 to July 14 - South Salem, NY

Spending time with my sister's family. I help my brother-in-law
build a stone creekbed with little waterfalls, to make a drainage
channel in the yard more attractive. We head down to the city
a couple times for dinner and sightseeing. I get a lot of reading
done.

John Diliberto invites me down to do an interview for Echoes,
so I spend two days midweek driving south to Pennsylvania, spending
the night with the Diliberto family. Alas, Echoes engineer and
old friend Jeff Towne is away this week on vacation. John and
I head into Philadelphia that evening to see a movie, the documentary
about Andy Goldsworthy called "Rivers and Tides." It's
exactly the sort of quiet, thoughtful movie that I love, although
John probably finds it was a bit too slow.

Goldsworthy's work has a rare clarity of mind, hovering somewhere
between simple playfulness and sheer wonder. Watching him painstakingly
adhere icicles to a rock in the shape of a serpent, which then
catches the waning light of the sunset in a brilliant flash of
light, transmits a strong nonverbal message of the "meaning"
in the act of making art.

I realize from the film that Goldsworthy has built a large
stone wall at an outdoor sculpture garden in upstate New York
called Storm King. I mention this to my sister upon returning
to New York, and we do a bit of research. It turns out that Storm
King is only 40 minutes away, across the Hudson. We make a day
of it.

I had never expected Storm King to have such a breathtaking
collection of large scale abstract sculpture! This place is amazing.
Huge Calder stabiles are spinning in the wind. A ten acre minimalist
installation by Richard Serra gives the impression of an ancient
structure buried under the hill, with only four black slabs of
steel protruding from a slope. We sit for twenty minutes, mesmerized
by a kinetic piece by George Cutts called "Sea Change,"
with two sensuously curved steel poles slowly turning around each
other like two snakes in a mating dance. Goldsworthy's wall curves
serpentine between trees at the edge of the 500 acre park, quietly
inviting viewers to explore its sinuous length.

We return home from Storm King visually nourished, awakened
with wonder and astonishment, having experienced art at its best.

Wednesday July 16 - Columbus OH, Dragonfly Neo-V

Back on the road, happy to be playing music again. I like Columbus,
an attractive midwestern college town. Todd Faulkner has done
a good job organizing this small gig. I'm staying with a photographer
friend of Todd's named Eric Shinn, who has kindly opened up his
house to a total stranger.

The venue turns out to be a classy vegan restaurant with a
funky cool art gallery attatched next-door. When I set up the
gear, I pay close attention to the behavior of the troublesome
rain-damaged Lexicon. This time it doesn't power up properly at
all. It doesn't fizz, nor does it make reverb. DOA. So, I play
another show without short verb, but again luckily the room acoustics
hide the shortcomings. The audience is great tonight, a good turnout
and very enthusiastic. Good dinner, too!

Friday July 18 - Louisville, KY, UofL Music School Recital
Hall

On the way out of Columbus, I stop at a music store and buy
myself a new reverb, a nice and inexpensive TC Electronics M-One
XL. Setting up early for this show, I remove the old 'verbs out
of the rack and do some fast patching and programming. This thing
sounds great!

I'm staying with Jason Clark, his girlfriend and their housemate,
sleeping on the living room floor of their small apartment. Jason
organized one of the best concerts on last year's tour, a sell-out
at the university planetarium. We couldn't get the planetarium
this time, but this recital hall looks great. A nice Steinway
piano, wood flooring and steeply inclined lecture-hall seating.
Unfortunately, we can't figure out how to turn down the safety
lights in the room, so we perform the concert with fairly high
ambient light.

Jason opens the show with his project SKL, playing mostly from
a laptop with a friend on didgeridoo. The music slides interestingly
between beat-oriented glitchy electronica and trancey drones.

The show isn't a sellout this time, but the audience is wonderful.
Several people came with gifts for me, including a portrait drawn
with energy lines and mushrooms radiating from my head, by a listener
named Joshua Bronaugh. Folks hang around after the show and help
load out. Good vibes. We're all happy, and stay up late talking
at Jason's house

Sunday July 20 - Detroit, MI

I was planning to perform in Chicago on this date, but as that
concert began to fall through I got a call from some guys in Detroit
who wanted to organize a show. I was a bit confused at first,
because they both were named Jason, and one of them even named
Jason Clark. In Louisville we joked that the Detroit Jason Clark
was the Evil Jason, an antimatter twin separated at birth. If
the two ever met, they would certainly explode.

The other Detroit Jason - Jason Huvaere - offered me his bedroom
while he slept downstairs in the office. The office/basement houses
a website called paxahau.com, with live streaming audio and the
promotional front end for a series of raves that these guys have
been organizing successfully for several years. They tapped into
their Detroit techno audience to introduce them to some old-school
ambient, my style.

On short notice they secured the planetrium in the science
center at the university. The show sold out three days before
on presales alone, with pure grassroots promotion. These guys
are good! They even mailed a letter to everyone who bought tickets,
explaining that this wasn't a rave, and people should behave themselves
in the planetarium. They hope to do other shows here in the future.
I'm hoping I get a chance to play here again, too, because this
concert was a pleasure. Good sound, good lights, no big technical
problems. My kind of show!

It turns out Jason Huvaere also appreciates good wine, so after
the concert we head back to the house and have a small tasting
with the rest of the Paxahau crew. Jason opens some good stuff!
He even sends me packing with two excellent bottles to try later,
one a 1996 Montepulciano, with big chewy tannins and lots of acidity,
the other a DeLille D2 from Washington State, with complex grassy
smells and dark leathery blueberry fruit. Thanks, Jason!

Monday July 21 - Tornadoes in Southern Michigan

Driving southwest to Peoria I hit the most intense weather
I have seen yet on this trip. Blue-black clouds up ahead, deep
opaque blurs underneath, telling me I'll hit heavy rain. I tune
into the radio news, and listen to tornado warnings for the two
counties north of me, with a tornado moving southeast. It'll probably
miss me, since I'm driving west, but the weather looks big.

The 18 wheel semi in front of me slows down as we approach
a wall of rain. The driver turns on his hazard lights, and for
20 minutes those blinking red lights provide my only clue about
the road. We're driving about 15 miles per hour through an airborne
lake. Water hits the car so hard it's deafening, and the wipers
prove useless. I feel like I'm driving a submarine. Common sense
would have suggested I pull over and wait for the storm to pass,
but I figure I'm OK as long as the truck in front of me stays
on the road.

Indeed we pass under the storm unscathed. By late afternoon
I drive through the tiny river town of Chillicothe, a few miles
north of Peoria. I plan to stay for two nights with family in
Peoria, my mother's home town. Her cousin Hank lives on the road
between the towns. He and his wife Sally welcome me with a light
dinner and a spare bedroom, and Hank surprises me with an interest
in my music and a desire to see me perform tomorow.

Hank and Sally have surprised me in other ways. My family is generally
quite conservative, and on the surface Hank and Sally are no exception.
A respectable couple in their late fifties, Hank is a dermatologist
and Sally has been director for several charity groups. Both are
active, attractive, intellectually curious and environmentally
aware.

I'm especially impressed by their dedication to the local Nature
Conservancy. Their house sits at the edge of a forested hillside,
with several open acres separating it from the road out front.
They have carefully re-seeded this front acreage with native grasses
and wildflowers, and they granted this portion of their property
to the Conservancy.

Last year, when I visited Hank and Sally while passing through
Peoria, Sally drove me out to the Dickson Mounds Museum, which she has helped
support. This place is an exquisite example of cooperation between
archaeologists, environmentalists, educators and native people.
An older museum had been built over a sacred burial site from
the mound building Hopewell culture and more recent Mississippian
people, on the bluffs near the Illinois River. Controversy over
displaying Indian remains led to the construction of a new museum,
built in a ring that covers, hides and protects the burial site.
Multimedia displays tell stories from the Indian's perspective,
in their own voices, and ethnographic exhibits supplement the
archaeology. I recommend this museum highly!

Tuesday July 22 - Chillicothe IL

Eric Williamson has a studio in a storefront of this friendly
and clean little community, between cornfields and the Illinois
River. When I was planning this tour, he sent me an email almost
jokingly asking whether I would play in Peoria. I wrote back saying,
sure, as long as you can get people to show up! So here I am.

Eric's mom owns a coffee shop in an old bank building across
the street. I wait there nursing a cappucino until Eric shows
up. Eric's sister has the key to his studio, so we walk across
and she opens it for me. They've adopted a stray kitten that's
running loose in the studio, and it keeps me entertained for a
while. Eric shows up. We begin moving furniture and hauling gear.

We convert Eric's storefront space into a makeshift concert
hall, with about 30 folding chairs and a pair of 3-way Mackie
PA speakers. (These speakers popped up at a few concerts during
this tour, and I must say they sound pretty darned good.)

People show up and the room feels friendly, with an audience
of about 25. I'm surprised to hear that several members of the
audience drove down from Chicago, filling in for the show that
got cancelled there. Eric performs first with a somewhat Teutonic
sounding set. He's using the software that Jim Coker showed me
in Albuquerque. (Eric goes by the name Suit and Tie Guy because
he always dresses in a suit and tie, quite a chore during the
hot humid midwest summers.) I end up playing a rather melodic
set. The small town atmosphere puts me in a mellow mood.

Wednesday July 22 - driving through the Midwest.

I get an early start and prepare for a long boring drive through
cornfields. In the past I have dreaded this stretch of I-80: long,
flat, straight, monochrome. Today, however, I see it through different
eyes. I think of the phrase "big sky" and notice how
certain views extend so far I think I can sense the curvature
of the earth. The sky takes on a dome shape, vaulted and grandiose
like Ptolemaic maps of the celestial spheres. Small scalloped
clouds progress like ocean waves, viewed upside down as I hang
inverted from this earthbound gondola.

Even Nebraska, that dreaded dry expanse of farmland, takes
on new luster today as I recognize the Platt River Valley for
the oasis it really is. I notice the low bluffs still populated
by old oak and cottonwood trees. This must have seemed paradise
for the Arapahoe who for centuries shared this land with buffalo
and hawks.

I stop before dark in Cozad, NE, and check into Motel 6. I
have a childhood memory of driving cross-country with my parents
in the mid-seventies. We stopped for dinner at Dudes' Steakhouse
in Lincoln, Nebraska. The faded neon sign outside showed a picture
of a steer. It was dim inside with dark wood panelling and burgundy
colored Naugahide booths. My mother ordered roast beef and it
came an inch thick and rare, covering the large oval plate, with
a dollop of horseradish and separate plates holding potato and
julienned carrots. I remember tasting this tender crossection
of cow and thinking it was the best meat I'd ever tried, sweet
and buttery soft.

About five years ago, my wife Dixie joined me on a short tour
across the midwest, and I told her about my Nebraska Beef Experience.
We actually found Dude's Steakhouse in Lincoln, and I am happy
to say it hadn't changed.

I rarely ate beef for years. For almost a decade I was semi-vegetarian,
after which beef tasted like rust to me. Now I'll try anything
if it's good. So today I ask the motel clerk to suggest some nearby
restaurants (other than the ubiquitous Denny's or Burger King,
which seem to have signed joint developement deals with Motel
6.) I walk down the highway frontage road, and turn north into
the outskirts of town, my legs still vibrating from the ten hour
drive.

I select PJ's Restaurant for my Nebraska Beef Experience this
year (103 East Monroe in Cozad NE). The interior looks suitably
honest, with requisite brown naugahide and red checkered table
cloths. I order the smallest and most expensive beef on the menu,
a $16 fillet mignon. First comes a large clear plastic bowl of
iceberg lettuce, garnished with shredded carrots, red cabbage
and blue cheese dressing - the definition of a midwestern salad.

The fillet comes rare inside with deep wood char on the outside,
cooked almost "blue" in kitchen jargon, merely a sprinkle
of salt and pepper, a small mound of horseradish and a bottle
of ketchup on the table, some hash browns to soak up the ketchup
(not on the steak!) It's tender enough to ignore the knife, and
it melts like soft caramel in my mouth. Almost spherically thick
(I could be refering to the fillet or my stomach at this point),
I take half back to the hotel for a midnight snack. Indeed, Nebraska's
the place to eat beef, an infrequent ritual I reserve as a reward
for driving through corn fields one more time.

Thursday July 24 - Denver CO

My wife Dixie will fly into the Denver airport this afternoon,
and I'm arriving early enough that I'll be able to pick her up.
We haven't seen each other for two months, but we talk almost
daily by cellphone.

The Denver airport sits way outside of town, in a barren hilly
wasteland slowly filling with sprawling townhome suburbs. I've
arrived hours early, and security laws prevent me from parking
my car and hanging out in the airport. I get some gas then lean
up against the chairless countertop sipping a diet cola, watching
people come and go in the quick-stop market. It's very hot outside
and I'm enjoying the air conditioning.

Bored, I drive into one of the nearby "towns" which
consist of several square miles of gated condominium clusters
and strip-malls full of chain restaurants like Outback Steakhouse
and Star Rockets. Some urban planner decided that this would be
a "great place to raise your kids up" (Centreville,
Zappa's 200 Motels) and the generic kid-friendly restaurant chains
soon followed.

Often these suburbs contain hidden ethnic treasures, so I search
around the edge corners of strip-mall parking lots. Here's where
I find the Mexican carnercérias, Indian spice markets,
and barbecue. I discover Uncle Buck's BBQ a family run hole-in-the-mall
with owner chef Ed Denmon hanging out at the front table, greeting
customers and chatting with regulars. I'm here after lunch hour,
so I'm the only person. I'm not very hungry, mostly looking to
waste some time. My appetite grows smelling scents from the smoker,
so I order some chicken legs. The sweet/sour/spicy Kansas City
style chipotle sauce perfectly compliments the delicately smoked
meat. This place is good.

I head back to the airport, ten minutes away, pick Dixie up
and sweep her over to Uncle Buck's where she orders a pulled pork
sandwich to go, lasting her all the way across town through messy
highway construction, as we drive toward Jim Lanpheer's house.

Friday July 25 - Denver CO, Temple Events Center

Joe Dobzynski contacted me before the tour, wondering if I
would like to add a gig to the house concert I had planned with
Jim Lanpheer. Jim and I had been trying to find a way to organize
a public concert, and Joe was starting a label and wanted to have
some of his artists perform in Denver. They would open for me
in a venue, to be determined. This sounded like a good match.

As the weeks past, I heard nothing from Joe, but I got email
from a sculptor named Doris Laughton Smith, who wanted to use
my music with a slide presentation at a Denver gallery where she
would have an opening. After permission and pleasantries exchanged,
it appeared that this gallery could be a good location for a public
concert. I emailed Joe, and heard back from him the same day telling
me he had already booked a 700 seat hall because he couldn't find
anything smaller. Yikes! I warn him that I don't have that kind
of draw in Denver, but I learn it's too late.

Needless to say, I dread this show because I expect to perform
for an empty theater. I would rather play to 30 people in a packed
living room than to 50 people in a huge auditorium. My expectations
prove correct. Attendance sucks. Nevertheless, the audience gives
their best attempt at filling the room with energy, and I have
a better time than I expected. The events center turns out to
be a 100 year old synagogue with a beautiful ballroom basement
and exquisite woodwork throughout, converted to a non-profit community
center after the neighborhood saved it from threats of demolition.
Frustrating gig in a fascinating venue. I feel a bit sorry for
Joe, who needs to learn a bit about the humbling "business"
of ambient/electronic music.

Saturday July 26 - Denver CO

Jim Lanpheer offered his house for a concert in Denver last
year, and it proved to be a great experience. Since then he has
invited several other artists to play there, and the good word
has spread. This is my second time, and I want to do something
special.

I warned people that Saturday's house concert will be totally
different from Friday's public concert, hoping of course that
people would go to both shows. I chose to make tonight's concert
completely improvised, unique on the tour. I wanted to try something
special (and I figured this crowd would forgive me if I made a
few mistakes along the way.)

Hoping for a magic moment, I set up a DAT tape, which Jim has
offered to monitor. Folks arrive, and we settle in to a relaxed
party vibe. One couple drove south from Saskatchewan Canada for
the show. Sculptor Doris Laughton and her husband come and give
me a signed and numbered "Splat". Ceramicist Dwight
Davidson gives me a handmade tile with a beautifully glazed relief
of a tree frog. Mike Metlay (Recording Magazine editor) comes
from Boulder with his fiesty and funny 8 year old daughter.

As we settle in and I start playing, a thunderstorm starts
brewing outside. Lightning and deep subsonic thrumming punctuate
an intense droney concert, as if to inject it with electric charge.
As I write this memoir, I'm listening to the recording, but I
don't hear the thunder on the tape. I do occasionally hear transient
clicks of static, no doubt from the lightning. There's something
special about this recording, and I am hoping to release it. Something
about the heavy weather and community spirit seems to summarize
this moment.

Monday July 28 to Friday August 1 - en route to Seattle

Dixie and I leave Denver after a pleasant Sunday playing tourist
with Jim and his girlfriend in Boulder. We drive north across
Wyoming, to Jackson Lake Lodge in the Tetons, to enjoy a good
dinner in the Mural Room with sunset over Grand Teton, and collapse
exhausted from social interaction and long drives.

Tuesday in Yellowstone, I take close up pictures of slimy bacterial
mats and sulphur springs, hoping for another happy accident like
the cover of "Fissures". (No luck this time, alas.)
We continue north and spend the night in Missoula Montana.

Wednesday we drive across eastern Washington. I never realized
this area was so desolate and boring. I would take Nebraska any
day. I wonder if there's any way to detour down to Yakima and
check out the wine region, but distance and driving schedule forbids
the daliance. We arrive at the home of my old friend Nathan Griffith
and his wife Brenda in early evening.

Nathan used to be an art professor. Brenda is a multifaceted
and very skilled painter, whose densely textured field paintings
populate their house. Now Nathan edits images for the digital
stock house Corbis. We share some common tastes in music and abstract
art, and I've learned a lot from him about minimal sculpture.
He introduced me 15 years ago to light artist James Turrell, and
today he tells me that Turrell has a new permanent exhibit at
the UW Henry Art Gallery. We plan a visit.

Thursday we play turist at Pike Place and local shops. Friday
we head down to the Henry and experience some incredible luminous
art. I could spend all day here. Turrell's sky room consists of
an enclosed ring of bench seating with an elliptical hole cut
in the ceiling. The ellipse imposes a frame upon the energized
gray-blue dome of sky above, reminding the eye that everything
around us becomes retinal once perceived. I ponder at the opposition
between this approach and that of Marcel Duchamp, who fought the
"retinal" in art, trying to move his creations into
a purely conceptual realm. I find myself attracted to both ideas
at once, amazed at all reminders of our place here alive and perceiving
- whether through eye or through ideation.

Turrell's interior light sculptures tickle the eye more intensely
than the sky space. The piece called "Spread" appears
from outside like a surface of glowing blue glass, flat but more
intense than any reflective canvas. As you approach the surface,
it becomes a depth, an opening into another room, filled with
pure light. You walk in, and you become engulfed in energy, an
experience that triggers the imagination towards "Close Encounters":
otherworldly, almost spiritual and awesome.

This work lives in a different universe than Andy Goldsworthy,
yet like Goldsworthy it creates awe without substance, magic without
a tangible artifact. Like music, it exists in the aether, an incongruous
action that conveys meaning, a place energized by a creative moment,
a stimulous within which to see one's own perceiving.

Saturday August 2 - Seattle WA, Secluded Alley Works

Ken Hofsass contacted me last year to ask if there would be
any way to get me to perform in Seattle. I replied saying "sure,
just find me a promoter." He offered to try it himself. He
secured the venue and made posters, sent announcements to newspapers
and succeeded in filling the venue. Thanks Ken! This turned out
to be a great show despite my trepidations about the funky neighborhood.

Sunday August 3 to Tuesday August 6 - San Juan Island

A few days off to visit my parents up in Puget Sound. We arrive
in time to listen to my father play guitar with his jazz band
at a restaurant in Friday Harbor. Monday my parents celebrate
their 46th wedding anniversary, so we take them out to Roche Harbor
for dinner. Mostly we kick back and watch the boats go by.

Wednesday August 7 to Saturday August 9 - Portland OR

We're staying at the home of Jay Swichtenberg, one of a circle
of musicians whom I have known since the mid-eighties. These guys
played in synth groups and swapped cassettes back when I still
had one foot in the cassette underground scene, and I've long
felt a kinship with them.

Jay has some spare time this week, and he graciously takes
us into Portland for a day of exploration. On the first Thursday
each month, the streets of the gallery district come alive with
artists and craftsmen selling their work. The art galleries stay
open late, and everyone's eating outside at a café or walking
in the late daylight of a Northwest midsummer evening. I could
live here.

On Friday, Jay drives us east of town, up the Columbia River
Valley, to see some of the waterfalls and views along the river.
We hike a bit and enjoy some fresh air. In the evening we head
over to Dave Fulton's house for a pre-concert party. Paul Schreiber
arrives from Texas to meet the crew. (Paul makes the MOTM modular
that both Dave Fulton and I have been using. Some Synthesis Technology
software developers also live in Portland, so Paul thought this
would be a good excuse to discuss their work in person.) Good
food and company, including old friends like Brian Magill, whom
I haven't seen in almost a decade.

Saturday, yet another show. Dave Fulton's group Dweller at
the Threshhold opens for me, then I do my thing. The venue, Nocturnal,
has a good sounding PA system with those same Mackie 3-way speakers
hung from the roof, and a classy bar downstairs out of earshot
(no bar chatter during the show... yay!) Decent turnout, no major
glitches, good family vibe all around. Everyone ponders the idea
of going out for a midnight dinner after we tear down and load
out, but exhaustion sets in and I feel more inclined to wake up
early and make it home tomorow.

Sunday August 10 - Home

After a day's drive from Portland, with brief lunch stop in
Medford to say hello to my aunt. . . how wonderful to be home!
Our cat runs along the back fence to greet us, making frantic
meep meep sounds after she hears our whistle. The vegetables that
we planted back in April look like a jungle, with three zucchinis
grown to the size of human thighs since Dixie left two weeks before.
I taste a tiny sample of my homemade zinfandel aging in barrels
in the basement, and I'm astonished to discover that in the last
three months it has matured from almost undrinkably tannic to
something that, well, doesn't suck. The next few days I spend
doing email and catching up on bills, before heading down to LA
with Dixie for one last concert.

Saturday August 16 - Pomona, CA, 51 Buckingham

Chuck Oken owns and manages Rhino Records in Claremont, and
unflinchingly supports electronic, progressive and ambient music
despite its low marketability. He also plays drums in the band
Djam Karet. Steve Roach introduced me to Chuck years ago. Chuck
is using Rhino's name to help promote concerts by musicians that
he likes. This final concert on my tour takes place in a large
gallery/performance space in neighboring Pomona. Chuck puts us
up in a nice hotel for two days and buys us lunch on the day of
the show.

The backdrop behind the stage of 51 Buckinham, a backlit geometric
relief made of layered sheets of stamped steel, doubles as a sound
diffusion panel. It adds a classy modern touch to the otherwise
timeworn large hall. During sound check I discover that the PA
system has fried tweeters, which triggers some last minute anxiety.
They call in the owner of the club, who successfully repairs the
speakers but treats me quite rudely. I feel like he thinks it's
my fault his speakers are toasted, not the punk band that played
here last night. The helpful guys who work at the club tell me
he's rude to everyone.

While repair work proceeds, I'm doing an interview with a television
crew out front, who want to start a cable series about technolgy
and the arts. As Dixie sets up the merchandise table, the others
ask her where I went. She tells them I have a knack for chattering
too long during interviews. (!) Well, yes, I suppose... but this
time I was waiting for them to adjust the lighting during sunset
while the breeze kept knocking down the light diffuser.

Tonight's concert earns my award for the most distance an audience
member has travelled. Jussi Piekkala flew from Helsinki Finland,
having scheduled a week's holiday in California to coincide with
my concert. I'm a bit flabbergasted, of course. Jussi is a soft
spoken professional, emminently polite, unwilling to bother me
while I set up before the show. He's a pleasure to talk to, very
intelligent and astute. We discuss some of the spiritual and symbolic
elements behind the music, something which I generally try to
underplay for fear of being misunderstood.

Jussi's commitment to being here for the concert makes me realize,
even more than usual, how important it is for me to give my best
with each concert, to try to communicate something with substance.
It's easy to get burnt out, to lose focus near the end of a tour;
but tonight I realize that the act of performing actually recharges
me, continually returns me to the source, to the inexpressible
reasons that music matters.

This small community of listeners, who seek out abstract and
introspective music, share a common thread of openness and curiosity.
This slow music will never become a majority artform. Our music
sounds either boring or bizarre to most people. I've come to feel
deepening gratitude to the audience who makes it possible for
me to seek out new sounds, new modes of expressing the ineffable.
I relish the moments when I can talk with people before and after
concerts, occasionally sharing surprising familiarities.

I recall each vivid late night, exhausted but still vibrating
with nervous energy after a concert; among new friends we share
ideas until dawn, before I wander off to sleep on a guest bed
or living room floor.

We dream alone, yet a dreamer's world can feel unfulfilled
when left unshared. The creative act becomes a searchlight, a
code to find fellow dreamers. As we locate each other, a web of
community forms, a community spread across distance, connected
by dreams and their artifacts. I feel very lucky to have found
this web of friends.